Acts of Vengeance

CHAPTER NINETEEN THE HUNTERS

The dull whump rumbled up from somewhere in the bowels of the ship. Five seconds later, another whump, this one closer, more pronounced. It came from the starboard side, somewhere amidships. the Reagan shuddered from the muffled explosion.

Fletcher gripped the handhold on the bulkhead and stared at the display. “That’s two. Where are—”

“Missed,” said Vitale, pointing at the display. “The last two just missed the rudder.”

Klaxons blared. Over the public address came the bosun’s mate’s voice again: “Torpedo impact, fourth deck aft and amidships! Away all damage control teams. Set condition Zebra.”

Fletcher slid into his tall padded chair and picked up his sound powered telephone. “CIC, flag. Do you have a lock on the sub?”

“Yes, sir,” came the voice of the Combat Information Center duty officer. “O’Hara has a contact and is on the way with Royal backing up. We’re launching Seahawks, and they’re getting a sonobuoy screen down.”

“I want that sonofabitch blown out of the water.”

“We’re doing our best, Admiral.”

Fletcher put down the microphone. He saw Babcock staring at him.

“This is crazy,” said Babcock. “Who… who would torpedo the Reagan?” All trace of color was gone from his face.

“You tell me.”

“What do you mean?”

“While you were playing geopolitics with a terrorist, he was setting us up for a torpedo shot. It was a sucker play, Mr. Babcock.” Fletcher spat the words out.

“That’s absurd.”

“Is it? Why else has he been yanking us around, holding off an air strike to rescue our marines?”

“Watch your tongue, Admiral. I’m the one who put you in this job and I’ll—”

He stopped when he saw the look on Fletcher’s face. Fletcher was staring at something over his shoulder, out the port side of the flag bridge.

An orange fireball was mushrooming skyward. Above the fireball rose an oily dark cloud. Flaming debris spurted like roman candles from the inferno.

It took six seconds for the concussion to reach the Reagan.

The blast hammered the stormproof windows of the flag bridge. Down below, men and equipment were swept across the open flight deck, tumbling over the fantail, into the catwalks, over the side. Masts ripped from their moorings on the island, crashing down to the deck below. A Seahawk helicopter, just lifting from the fantail, flipped into a vertical bank and plummeted into the water.

“Jesus,” said Guido Vitale, looking up in shock. “What the hell was that?”

“The Baywater,” said Fletcher. “The ammunition ship. It took one of the torpedoes that was meant for us.”

Horrified, Fletcher stared at the carnage one and a half miles off the Reagan’s aft port quarter. The stricken ship was blown in half. The severed stern of the Baywater was already sliding into the sea, flames leaping from the shattered structure. The forward half was low in the water, burning fiercely. As Fletcher watched, an explosion boiled up from the hull. Another black mushroom belched into the sky.

Guido Vitale made a sign of the cross. “God help them.”

Fletcher stared at Babcock. “God help us all.”

“Fast contact, Captain. A hundred and fifty degrees, three thousand meters. A destroyer, by the screw noise.”

“Course and speed?”

“Twenty knots, accelerating, turning to an intercept bearing.”

One of the escort destroyers, thought Manilov. No surprise. After a possible periscope echo, then a salvo of torpedoes, they were coming with all their knives drawn. They would never stop hunting the submarine that torpedoed their battle group.

“Forward five knots, descend to eighty meters.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Manilov had always wondered how it would feel at this moment. Never in his years of naval service had he actually fired a shot in anger. Now, not one but four shots. Three had found targets.

It was as sweet as he could have hoped.

At least two torpedoes had impacted the Reagan. No secondary explosions, which was unfortunate. He could only hope now that the two-hundred-kilogram warheads had sufficiently ruptured the carrier’s hull, destroying its watertight integrity. Even sweeter would be an explosion in one of the ship’s reactor spaces, setting off a nuclear calamity that would force them to scuttle the ship.

But the sweetest moment — the kind that submarine skippers enjoyed in their wildest fantasies — was the explosion of the escort vessel. The magnitude of the blast was enough to nearly rupture the ears of the sonar operator. The hull of the Mourmetz had trembled from the blast, causing the crew in the control room to break their silence and cheer at the top of their lungs.

“More screw noise, Captain. Another destroyer. And something else… I think an aircraft. A helicopter… yes, definitely a helicopter.”

Manilov made a quick calculation. With the destroyer’s fast closing speed, they would merge in four minutes, presuming the destroyer had a reasonable fix on the submarine’s last position. The helo would be overhead at approximately the same time. Each, he knew, carried Mark 46 or Mark 50 antisubmarine torpedoes.

The Mourmetz had only minutes left to live.

“Ready tubes five and six. Reload the first four.”

He saw Popov and Borodin look at each other and nod. Good, thought Manilov. Let them know how Russian submariners fight.

“Tubes five and six ready, Captain.”

“Stand by.” He leaned over the combat computer operator’s console. “Do we have a firing solution on the destroyer?”

“Almost. It will be difficult with the target head-on.”

“Compute a solution for the trailing destroyer. We’ll put one up both their snouts.”

“Aye, Captain. It is not precise, just the passive return.”

“I understand. It’s our only option.”

Manilov studied the display for another ten seconds, choosing his moment. “Fire five.”

“Fire five,” Popov responded.

The Mourmetz shuddered as the 2,220-kilogram weapon burst from the number five tube.

Manilov did another quick check of the display. “Fire six.”

“Aye, fire six.”

Another shudder. The sound of the exiting torpedo filled the interior of the Mourmetz.

“The aircraft, Captain. Coming closer. It will fly directly over us.”

“How many?”

“Just one is all I am detecting.”

“Ready the missile battery.”

“Ready with Igla one, sir.”

Manilov had no idea whether the Igla missiles even worked. The SAM battery had been a retrofit on the Kilo-class submarines and was never tested before the Mourmetz was sold to the Iranians. No matter. If fate allowed the missiles to function today, then they would.

He waited until he was sure the helicopter was within the killing envelope of the short-range Igla. The trick was not to wait too long. The helicopter would launch its torpedo.

“Stand by… Fire!”

He heard a rumbling noise, the sound of the compressed air blowing the weapon free of its battery in the sail. Then the gurgling sound of the missile ascending to the surface.

“Ahead five knots, course a hundred and sixty-five degrees, maintain eighty meters.”

The warrant officer looked up at him. “Captain, that course will take us directly beneath the enemy aircraft carrier.”

“Precisely.”

The first SH-60B Seahawk — call sign Blister Eleven — was on a mission of vengeance. The pilot and his crew had barely escaped the blast from the exploding Baywater. His squadron mates in Blister Ten — the second SH-60B that launched ten seconds behind them — had been smashed like a cheap toy into the sea behind the Reagan.

The ATO — the airborne tactical officer in the helicopter — had already loaded the fix from the disappeared periscope sighting into his mission computer, then correlated the information with the recorded tracks of the four torpedoes, datalinked from the Arkansas.

While the helicopter accelerated low over the water, he saw it — Yes! — the sub-tracking solution on his situational display. He knew where the sonofabitch was. Computers were really pretty cool gadgets.

For the pilot of the Seahawk, it was coming down to a race between him and the destroyer. He could seeO’Hara leaving a wake like a speedboat as it sliced through the water. Somebody was going to kill the submarine and he was damned well going to make sure it was Blister Eleven.

Making a good 120 knots, the helicopter skimmed over the top of the O’Hara on the same course — 330 degrees — headed for the sub’s position. According to the ATO’s inertial navigation computer, the sub was exactly one mile straight ahead.

The ATO wanted to pin him first with a pattern of sonobuoys. They’d make a high-speed pass, drop the sonobuoys, then swing around while the ATO tightened the noose on the sub. Then they’d put the Mark 50 in the water.

The sub was dead meat.

Then he saw something peculiar. It lasted for only a second — while he was looking straight down. It was deep, maybe a hundred feet down, leaving a thin bubbly stream behind it. Shit! Not another fucking torpedo —

His thoughts were cut short by the warning from the O’Hara: “Blister Eleven, SAM in the air! You’re targeted, Blister!”

For an instant the Seahawk pilot was confused. SAM? No way. He had just seen a freaking torpedo in the water. What the hell was this about a SAM?

Because he had already overflown the submarine’s last position, the pilot didn’t see the geyser that erupted from the sea behind him. Nor did he see the trail of fire from the missile as its rocket motor ignited and propelled it toward its target.

“Flares! Flares!” yelled the ATO over the intercom, aware of the danger.

It was the right call — but too late. The decoy illuminators had just begun streaming behind the Seahawk as the heat-seeking Igla missile boresighted the helicopter’s left turbine exhaust pipe.

The sensor operator, seated at his console behind the ATO, was the first to know. He felt the lurch, heard the shriek of tortured machinery. He looked up in time to see the left turbine engine of the Sikorsky explode, taking away the overhead cabin section. To his horror, the whole structure was ripping upward through the big whirling rotor blades.

The mortally wounded helicopter rolled over in a sickening death dive. Tumbling end over end, the Sikorsky plunged 150 feet into the Arabian Sea, barely making a splash before it disappeared beneath the waves.

Alerted by sonar to the torpedoes, both destroyers were spewing out acoustic decoys in a trail behind them. On the bridge of the O’Hara, the captain ordered a violent evasive turn, then swung the narrow bow of the destroyer back toward the oncoming torpedo. He glimpsed the thin white wake as the torpedo sped twenty yards past his port beam.

Farther behind and with more time to evade, the captain of the Royal simply took a thirty-degree offset course, putting several hundred yards between his destroyer and the path of the enemy torpedo.

The Royal churned directly to the spot where the Seahawk had crashed, checking for any sign of survivors. The O’Hara continued at flank speed toward the presumed position of the enemy submarine. Loaded in her tubes and ready to fire were two Mark 50 lightweight anti-submarine torpedoes.

But the O’Hara’s sonar operator no longer had an active contact. Nor did the antisubmarine warfare technicians on the Royal. Or the cruiser Arkansas. Without a positive sonar ID on the Kilo class, it was too dangerous to launch a homing torpedo. The same torpedo could home in on a friendly vessel.

Within minutes three more destroyers had joined the search. Two additional Seahawks arrived with MAD gear and sonobuoy dispensers. A forest of sonobuoys was soon bobbing on the water, providing acoustic cross-bearings for the sub hunters.

But the contact was lost. The submarine had vanished.

The damage reports, relayed from the Reagan’s captain, were coming in faster than Fletcher and his staff could process them. Four enlisted sailors and five officers, including the group operations officer, were busy on the sound-powered telephones.

“Damage control teams are still getting the inner hull plug in place in the aft machinery room bulkhead.”

“Flooding in the turbine rooms is contained. All six compartments are sealed, and the plug should be in place within an hour.”

“Situation now stable amidships fourth deck. Firefighters report the machinery room blaze is under control.”

“Three men overboard still missing, and five picked up by the destroyer Crockett.”

“Reagan’s engineering officer reports number four steam turbine and propeller inoperative.”

“Joplin has finished taking all survivors from Baywater aboard.”

At this, Fletcher turned to Vitale. “How many?”

“Only eighteen, several of them critical. A hundred-ten missing and presumed lost in the explosion, including Commander Borden, the skipper.”

Fletcher felt a pall of gloom descend over him as the enormity of the loss of the ammunition ship and its crew sank in. In a single flash, the lives of over a hundred men and women had been snuffed like a light. Not since World War II had an American vessel suffered such damage from hostile action.

Fletcher didn’t want to think of the outcry in the press and in Washington. The Gulf of Aden had turned into a killing ground.

Still on the prowl was a killer submarine.

“Update on the sub plot?”

“Nothing new,” said Vitale. “No new contacts. Our guy, whoever he is, has either bugged out without being detected, or he’s in deep hiding.”

“Waiting for his next shot,” said Fletcher.

“That’s possible, but it would be suicide. As soon as he makes a sound or takes a peek with the scope, they’re gonna be all over him like a cheap suit. We’ve got more sub-hunting equipment on station than we had in Desert Storm. We even have P-3s on the way down from Masirah in Oman.”

“What about the SSNs?”

“SUBLANT has ordered the Bremerton to rejoin the battle group ASAP. They’re on their way out of the Red Sea, clearing Bab el Mandeb — the strait at the end of the Red Sea — in about an hour. On station by nightfall. Tulsa is on its way from Diego Garcia and won’t get here until late tomorrow.”

Fletcher nodded. Bremerton and Tulsa were Los Angeles— class nuclear attack submarines whose specialty was hunting other subs. For most operations, a carrier battle group had at least one and usually two attack submarines assigned. Because of the Reagan’s unscheduled departure from Dubai, the battle group had assembled without the immediate company of an attack submarine. At the time, Fletcher hadn’t been concerned. He was on his way to engage third-world guerillas in Yemen, not undersea enemies.

Another bitter lesson, he reflected. One of many. When the battle of Yemen was dissected and analyzed by military strategists, it would be declared one of the Navy’s most egregiously arrogant blunders. Unfortunately, the name of Langhorne Fletcher would be forever linked to the blunder.

“COMFIVE wants to know our status and intentions, Admiral.”

“Stand by,” Fletcher said. He picked up the direct line to the captain’s bridge. “Sticks, this is BG.”

“Go, Admiral,” came the voice of Sticks Stickney.

“I know you’re up to your butt in alligators. A quick yes or no. Can Reagan maintain station?”

“If the DC team gets the plug in the inner hull, yes, sir. I should have that nailed down in the next fifteen minutes. We won’t be a hundred percent, but we can operate.”

“How about air ops?”

“With only three turbines and the damaged hull, engineering can’t give me more than about twenty knots. That restricts our aircraft weights for launch and recovery. And there’s another problem. When the turbine was hit, we lost steam to the waist catapults. We’re down to the two bow cats.”

“But we could launch a strike if we had to?”

A pause. “Technically, yes. CAG will have a problem with only two catapults. He might have a bigger problem if we can’t give him enough wind over the deck to launch the bombers.”

Fletcher considered. The carrier wasn’t sinking, despite the two torpedoes she had taken. Like all Nimitz — class carriers, Reagan had been constructed with a double-bottomed hull. The idea was that the outer hull would absorb the damage of a torpedo attack while the inner hull maintained watertight integrity. Until today, the design had never been tested in combat.

“Okay, Sticks. Get back to me with the damage control report.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

As Fletcher hung up the phone, he felt Babcock watching him from across the room. For a moment the two men exchanged looks. Fletcher yelled to the yeoman across the room: “Call the Air Wing Commander. I need him up here on the double.”

He caught Babcock’s surprised look. He looks worried. Whitney Babcock looked like a man who was losing control.